Welcome to Foreign Affairs Summer Reads. For the next two months, in honor of the United States’ 250th birthday, we’re sharing some of our favorite essays from the archives on American statecraft and power and the history that shapes both. We start this week with a 2025 essay by Michael Beckley, making the case that dysfunction at home “has had remarkably little effect on American power” abroad.
“By all appearances, the United States is a mess,” wrote Beckley. Trust in government is low, political polarization is high, and the majority of Americans “believe the country is on the wrong track.” Yet by many measures, the United States’ global position is as dominant as ever.
This contradiction, Beckley argued, stems from the fact “that the United States’ main assets—its vast land, dynamic demographics, and decentralized political institutions—also create severe liabilities.” American leaders must address the “domestic fragmentation and strategic insolvency” that result, he warned. “Otherwise, the paradox of American power may one day bring it all crashing down.”
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